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"hurdles" for "hurtles"

This one is apparently new to the Eggcorn Forum: ”$9 Million Added to GREEN LANTERN Budget; More VFX Houses Recruited as Film Hurdles Towards Release Date” (from a website about movies).

I think it’s probably a real eggcorn; both the similarity in sound and the meaning connection (hurdling in the sense of clearing hurdles toward some goal) are there. My only doubt has to do with the fact that, in the context of this quote, “hurdles” could easily be a purposeful pun instead of an eggcorn.

So I googled “hurdles toward” to look for less ambiguous eggcorns. Most of the hits are not eggcornish, and most of the ones that, in principle, could be are in the context of articles about track and field, thus likely purposeful puns instead. But I did find quite a few that seem like the real McCoy, e.g.:

“Green avoids injury when broken bat hurdles toward him as he tries to field ground ball”

“Note the large glass chunk that hurdles toward the camera.”

“The second exciting installment in this series will continue the story of the rise of the Antichrist and the journey of the other main characters as time, unknown to them, hurdles toward the Rapture.”

“America hurdles toward Neo-Feudalism.”

And note the two different uses of “hurdle(s)” side-by-side in this one:

“Transit Authority Clears Senate Hurdle; Hurdles Toward House Vote.” (This one may be a pun.)

My best estimate from the sample of Google pages I looked at is that there are somewhere near 300 unique examples of an unambiguous hurdle/hurtle eggcorn listed in the Google “hurdles toward” lists. I want this one to go onto the list!

Re: "hurdles" for "hurtles"

A look at the central metaphors: “hurtling’”off of a cliff suggests: a sort of out-of-control frenzy, quickly occurring, and resulting in serious damage, such as death. “”Hurdling” over the cliff suggests a very different action: going up, instead of down, being more controlled, and, of course, being close to impossible: one cannot jump over a cliff. Cliffs, by definition, are high. (A curb is not a cliff, except to an ant.} But the action is safe, and won’t result in catastrophe: only failure. Which is not the same thing…. Like tilting at windmills. Of course both make a sort of sense in a political context…or perhaps, then again, maybe not….